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The Asgardians are the inhabitants of Asgard. They are a race of extraterrestrial beings similar to the human beings possessing a highly advanced form of technology resembling magic and sorcery, which their entire civilization is built on.

The Asgardians are a brave and a powerful warrior race whose passion for adventure is their religion, and their reputation as one of the mightiest races in the universe has earned them the respect and fear from other races.

Having interacted with humans in Scandinavia centuries ago, they informed their culture and religion and thus share many characteristics with the ancient Norse. For example, it appears that an Asgardian surname is their father's name and the child's relation, similar to old Norse tradition (and even today in modern Icelandic tradition). For example, Thor, the son of Odin, has the surname Odinson, leading him and other Asgardians to believe this applies to humans as well, exemplified when they refer to Phil Coulson as "Son of Coul".

The Asgardians are now an endangered species, having been mostly wiped out by both Ragnarök and the Attack on the Statesman, with Thor, Valkyrie[1], and a select few individuals who didn't experience the events being the only known survivors.

After many years of fighting, Bor and the Asgardians defeated the Dark Elves and stole the Aether before Malekith could unleash its power on the realms. Bor ordered the Aether to be hidden away, somewhere no one would be able to find it. Unknown to the Asgardians, Malekith, his lieutenant Algrim, and various other Dark Elves escaped in a ship and went into hibernation until the time of the next Convergence.[2]

Conquering the Nine Realms

Odin led Asgard into a violent conquest of otherworldy planets, alongside his daughter, Hela. Together, they ambitiously conquered the Nine Realms. Unsatiated by just the eight planets, Hela wanted more conquest and more power, and so, realizing how powerful Hela really was, Odin swiftly banished her from Asgard before she could harm anyone. To ensure Hela would not return, Odin sent his Valkyries to Hel in order to kill her. However, Hela overpowered the warriors, killing everyone with the exception of Valkyrie.[3]

Galactic Exploits

"Well, if there's an Einstein-Rosen bridge, then there's something on the other side. And advanced beings could have crossed it!""Oh, Jane!""A primitive culture like the Vikings might have worshiped them as deities.""Yes! Yes, exactly. Thank you."

Being an advanced, spacefaring people, the Asgardians interacted with various other races and cultures. Among those known included the Kree, the Centaurians, the Korbinites, the Badoon, and the Nova Empire, as well as Knowhere. Sif herself mentions blue aliens she has met: Interdites, Levians, Pheragots, Kree, Sarks, Centaurians, and Jotuns. Their encounters with other galactic groups helped the Asgardians build a higher reputation for themselves, earning respect from the other races, while also making them enemies of some.[4] As children, Asgardians are taught about the many races, including even learning their languages.[5]

Traveling to Earth

"Midgard, also known as the Planet Earth, has long captured the interest of the Asgardians, who have traveled on the Rainbow Bridge to observe this realm."

Asgardians also began traveling to Earth and formed a strong relationship with the humans. The Asgardians taught the Norse people their language and culture and were recognized as gods. This tradition was continued for many years.[6]

Although they have a history of contact, Asgardians do not have very close ties with cultures from worlds other than the Nine Realms. Even though they are recognized, Asgardians are not seen as one of the prominent members of the integrated space community.[7]Lady Sif mistakenly informed Phil Coulson that Frost Giants were the only blue-skinned alien race to have ever visited Earth[4] when in fact, the Kree had visited Earth well before the time of Odin's reign.[8] Another example is when Thor tells the Avengers that the Chitauri are not of any world ever known,[9] although they reside in a region of space known as Sanctuary.[7] Previously, Thor had spoken to Loki, the then-leader of the Chitauri, who had told him that in his exile he had learned many things, including worlds Thor—and presumably the rest of the Asgardians—does not know about, including obviously Chitauri Space.

War against Jotunheim

In 965 AD, the Frost Giants of Jotunheim set about to conquer the Nine Realms, starting with Earth. The Asgardians, now under the rule of Bor's son Odin, arrived in humanity's defense. The Asgardians eventually drove the Frost Giants back to Jotunheim, where Odin personally defeated the Jotun king, Laufey to the point of surrender. After a truce was made, the Asgardians claimed the Casket of Ancient Winters, Jotunheim's greatest weapon, and took it back to Asgard for safekeeping.

While on Jotunheim, Odin found Laufey's abandoned son and decided to raise him as his own alongside his own son, Thor. Odin named the child Loki and planned to eventually use him to unite the two kingdoms and bring about a permanent peace.[6]

Berserker Army

In the 12th century, an army of Asgardians known as the Berserker Army came to Midgard. They were mostly or partially made up of Asgardian citizens, not of a fighting profession who had volunteered for the mission. They obtained greatly enhanced strength and a sense of extreme rage by touching the Berserker Staff. After it was over, the troops went back to Asgard except for one, The Warrior Who Stayed, later known as Elliot Randolph, who had fallen in love with Earth and its culture. He broke the Berserker Staff in three pieces and hid them throughout Europe, and kept his identity a secret. In the 1500's, however, he told his story to a French girl whose brother, a priest, wrote down, and the tale of the Berserkers went into legend.[10]

Asgardians decided not to return to Earth anymore, resulting in their presence in history as becoming merely legend. Odin, however, did leave the Tesseract, another Infinity Stone, behind on Earth in the early 15th century, but whether it was intentional or not is unclear.[11]

Thor's Banishment

"You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!""And you are an old man and a fool!""Yes... I was a fool, to think you were ready."

Six centuries later, Thor had proven himself as a worthy prince, defending Asgard in many battles and becoming something of a hero. When Odin decided to finally make Thor king, a jealous Loki decided to postpone the crowning. Opening a secret passageway into Jotunheim, Loki allowed three Frost Giants to enter Asgard where they attempted to steal their Casket from Odin's Trophy Room. Although the attempt failed, Thor's coronation was indeed postponed. Furious with rage, Thor, Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three traveled to Jotunheim where they began slaughtering as many Frost Giants as they could.

When Odin attempted to calm the situation, Laufey declared that they were once again at war. Returning to Asgard, Odin stripped Thor of his hammer, Mjølnir, and banished him to Earth to learn humility and prove himself worthy of the throne. In his absence, Loki confronted Odin of his true heritage and learned of how he was found. Under enormous stress, Odin fell into the Odinsleep, leaving Loki to take the throne.

Devising a plan, Loki traveled to Earth and told Thor that he is to remain on Earth in exile, stating that Odin had died from the threat of a new war. Loki then went to Jotunheim and struck a deal with Laufey, granting him permission to enter Asgard and kill Odin in his sleep. Meanwhile, Sif and the Warriors Three had traveled to Earth to bring Thor home. Loki had, in turn, sent the Destroyer after them. In a fierce battle in a small town, Thor proved himself worthy and his powers were restored, leading to the Destroyer's defeat. The incident caused the Earth to once again believe in the legends.

Back on Asgard, when Laufey attempted to make the killing strike against Odin, Loki betrayed and murdered him. Thor soon returned to Asgard and confronted Loki who revealed his plan to destroy Jotunheim using the Bifrost to prove himself worthy to Odin.[6]

The Bifrost Destroyed

During the brothers' Duel at the Bifrost Bridge, Thor was forced to destroy the Bifrost and save Jotunheim. Odin awoke from his sleep but declined Loki's pleas for acceptance. Loki then allowed himself to fall into the abyss of space. The Asgardians celebrated Thor's return and heroics but they were faced with a bigger problem. With the Bifrost gone, Asgard would not be able to protect the Nine Realms.[6]

Sensing Asgard's absence, a ragtag team of invaders known as the Marauders set about robbing and killing throughout the realms. Meanwhile, Asgard discovered that Loki was still alive and had made a deal with the alien tyrant, Thanos. Loki had traveled to Earth to steal back the Tesseract and in return would be given command of the Chitauri army in order to rule the planet. Using dark energy, Odin was able to send Thor to Earth to bring Loki and the Tesseract home.[12]

Loki's War on Earth

Using the Tesseract, Loki traveled to Earth and set about causing tumult in order to proclaim himself Earth's king. Using mind control, Loki had several humans build him a device that could harness the Tesseract's power and open a portal to allow the Chitauri to invade Earth.

Coming into conflict with S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and Thor, Loki, and his army were met with the battle as they laid waste to New York City. The Chitauri were eventually defeated, the portal closed, and Thor used the Tesseract to return Loki to Asgard for punishment.[9]

War of the Realms

Returning to Asgard, Heimdall used the Tesseract to restore the Bifrost. Loki, meanwhile, was imprisoned for his actions on Asgard, Jotunheim, and Earth while Thor was sent to lead the Asgardian troops against the Marauders who were still wreaking havoc all around the Nine Realms and beyond to planets such Harokin, Nix, Korbin, and Ria.

After a two year war, all of the Marauders were eventually rounded up and imprisoned on Asgard, the Realms were again at peace and owed their peace to Asgard. Odin, proud of the man his son had become, decided it was finally time to make Thor king, something he had now become wary of after years of battle.[2]

The Dark Elves Return

Five thousand years after their race was slaughtered, the Dark Elves awoke from their sleep, the time of the Convergence coming once again. Meanwhile, on Earth, Jane Foster came across portals left by the Convergence and was warped to the area where the Aether was hidden. Unleashing the Aether, Foster became its unwilling host. Traveling to Earth, Thor located his friend, to whom he formed a romantic attachment during his exile on Earth two years prior, and took her to Asgard for protection.

Meanwhile, Malekith devised a plan, disguising his lieutenant Algrim as a Marauder and had him imprisoned on Asgard. While inside the dungeons, Algrim unleashed the power of the Kursed, transforming himself into an indestructible beast. Releasing the Marauders from their cells, Algrim destroyed Asgard's defenses, allowing the Dark Elves to invade Asgard. In the frenzy, several prisoners escaped from their cells, including Lorelei, who made her way down to Midgard.

Battle commenced between the two sides, Asgardians and Dark Elves falling in number. Unable to locate the Aether's host, Malekith had Algrim murdered Queen Frigga before escaping on their ship. Asgard mourned Frigga and their many dead. Odin, erratic from the loss of his wife, had the Bifrost shut down and grounded all Asgardians for Malekith's return attack.

Thor, wanting to seek revenge, freed Loki from his cell and, with the help of Sif and the Warriors Three, escaped from Asgard with Foster. Using a dimensional rift that Loki discovered many years ago, they teleported to the Dark Elves' home planet, Svartalfheim. They eventually located Malekith, who took the Aether from Foster's body, despite Thor and Loki's best efforts to destroy it. With Loki sacrificing himself to kill Algrim, Thor and Foster were stranded on Svartalfheim while Malekith traveled to Earth to unleash the Aether at the Convergence's climax.

A New Rule

Returning back to Asgard, Thor declined the throne and told Odin he wished to stay on and protect Earth. Unknown to Thor, Loki, having survived his apparent death on Svartalfheim, traveled back to Asgard in disguise and had somehow usurped the throne, masquerading as Odin himself. Deciding that it was too risky to keep the Tesseract and the Aether both on Asgard, Sif and Volstagg delivered the Aether to the safekeeping of Taneleer Tivan, the Collector. Unknown to the Asgardians, Tivan somehow wished to use the Aether, along with the other Infinity Stones, for his own ends.[2]

Immigration on Earth

On Earth, S.H.I.E.L.D. had grown warier of supernatural threats after Loki invaded. In their efforts to retain global peace and deter possible threats, the agency came to realize that various Asgardians had made Earth their home. Two significant cases were Elliot Randolph and the sorceress Lorelei. The former aided S.H.I.E.L.D. in stopping a Norse hate group from using the Berserker Staff, an Asgardian weapon, for sinister purposes,[10] and the latter became an enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D., who teamed up with Sif to stop her.[4]

Meanwhile, Asgardians continued their role as protectors of the worlds within the Nine Realms. When Heimdall saw a Kree on Earth, Sif was sent to investigate. Ultimately, she brought him back to Asgard with her before he left for Hala.[5]

Elliot Randolph again teamed up with S.H.I.E.L.D. to figure out how to use and later destroy an ancient Kreeportal, the Monolith. Fearful of being dragged back through a portal back to Asgard or anywhere else, Randolph agreed to help S.H.I.E.L.D. understand how the portal worked with his vast knowledge from tracking down rumors of portals on Earth in exchange that the portal then is destroyed.[14]

Thor returned to Asgard after two years of searching for the Infinity Stones. He discovered that Loki was still alive and disguising himself as Odin to rule Asgard.[3] The two traveled to Earth and with the help of Doctor Strange,[15] they found Odin in Norway. Before his death, Odin told his sons that their sister, Hela would be free and would try to rule Asgard by force. With Odin's death, Hela appeared before them and stated herself as their queen and destroyed Mjølnir. The three were transported via the Bifrost Bridge by Skurge, but Hela threw the two out of it and they landed on the planet of Sakaar.

Hela quickly challenged the Einherjar to a fight and she managed to kill of the soldier and the Warriors Three. She appointed Skurge as her executioner and ruled the Asgardians in fear. However, Heimdall led the civilians of Asgard to a safe place where they could hide from Hela. Meanwhile, Thor reunited with Hulk on Sakaar and together with Valkyrie, they escaped the planet and headed to Asgard while Loki joined the Sakaaran Rebellion and travel to Asgard as well.

Thor challenged Hela to a fight while the rest of the Revengers and Asgardians fought her army of Berserkers. Hela revealed to be too powerful, so when Loki joined the fight and helped to evacuate the Asgardians from Asgard on a Sakaaran ship, Thor told Loki to merge the Crown of Surtur with the Eternal Flame so Surtur would cause the Ragnarök in order to kill Hela. The plan succeeded, but the Asgardians were left with no home planet as a result. Thor, their new king, set course for Earth for refuge.

Brink of Extinction

The Asgardian refugee ship was intercepted by Thanos and the Black Order, where the ship was boarded. A massive fight ensured, during which half of the surviving Asgardians were slain. Thor, Hulk, Heimdall, and Loki survived the fight. Heimdall would be killed by Thanos after using the last of his energy to teleport Hulk to Earth via the Bifrost. Loki would quickly follow after attempting to assassinate Thanos by feigning allegiance to him once more. After successfully integrating the Space Stone into the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos used the Power Stone to detonate the ship before teleporting away with the Black Order.

Technology

"Asgard is millennia beyond you in our pursuit of science and knowledge. And we have learned there are some things that can never be understood."

Asgardians are an advanced warrior race with access to technology beyond human comprehension. Most Asgardian devices are deceptively primitive-looking in nature with esoteric, ancient-sounding names. Their technology is somewhat mystical in nature. Many inhabitants have a great martial skill, and Asgard's armies have kept peace in the Nine Realms for many millennia. They possess energy weaponry, along with aircraft similar to Viking longboats that are armed with cannons and missiles. The palace of Valhalla itself is protected by an energy shield, and travel between the Nine Realms is made possible by the Bifrost, a bridge between worlds.

The Asgardians also maintain regular melee weapons, such as swords, spears, and shields. Their weapons, however, are made of nanotechnology. They appear normal when still, but when moving quickly (i.e. sword slashing in battle) the blade glows with a bluish-white aura of energy which greatly increases the power of the weapon. The shields are capable of deflecting laser blasts; when a blast hits the shield, it ripples with the same energy, deflecting the blast. This same energy is present in a lot of other Asgardian technology. It is fired by cannons and generated as the shield used to protect the palace.

The Bifrost

One of the most important pieces of technology the Asgardians possess is the Bifrost Bridge. Heimdall's Observatory, from which he commands the Bifrost and watches over the Nine Realms and space, lies just outside of Asgard connected by the Rainbow Bridge. It allows the Asgardians to travel to other planets without the need of spaceships, as other cultures do.[7][2]

Characteristic Traits

"We are not gods. We are born, we live, we die. Just as humans do.""Give or take five thousand years."

While Asgardians and humans look the same in appearance, they are very much different. Asgardians have various superhuman abilities that are superior to a normal human being. The most primary of their abilities are superhuman strength, although it varies while the average Asgardian possess strength to battle any type of being within the Nine Realms while more developed warriors, like Heimdall, the Warriors Three, Frigga and Sif have strength that is slightly superior in which they can overpower low-level Asgardian warriors (or in the case of Frigga, battle a Dark Elf to a remarkable degree). Elliot Randolph, due to his days as a Berserker, may still possess the strength that could put him in the category with them as well. Only Bor, Odin, Hela and Thor seem to be the ones that possess the highest level strength due to them being the past, present and future kings and queens of Asgard and the ruling leaders of their kind.

In addition, their other physical abilities are "naturally" enhanced such as speed (shown by Thor when he tackled the Hulk before he could strike Black Widow), agility (again shown by Thor when he dodged a S.H.I.E.L.D. jet fighter's wing thrown at him by ducking under it), reflexes, and coordination.

However, the most important of their abilities is their durability and regenerative abilities. They are very durable, although again it varies. While the average Asgardian can survive against the most powerful of opponents, they can be killed. However, Heimdall, The Warriors Three, and Sif have a more developed durability that can enable them to survive against even more powerful opponents like the Destroyer. Bor, Odin, Hela and Thor, again, have the highest level durability, enabling them to survive opponents just as powerful, if not slightly more powerful than themselves.

Even though they can survive tremendous amounts of superhuman physical punishment more than a normal human being, they can be hurt or damaged. That is when their advanced regenerative abilities take over. It enables them to heal much faster than a normal human being. However, they do have a "healing room" to expedite treatment of grievous injuries. It seems that low-level Asgardians and mid-level Asgardians need it, except Odin, who goes through the Odinsleep and Thor, the son of Odin, whose regenerative ability is stronger than the vast majority of his race. Alcohol must be stronger or ingested in higher quantities to affect an Asgardian compared to a human. Thor drank thousand-year-old alcohol to feel the effect, while Elliot Randolph became drunk by consuming an incredibly large amount.

Also, their regenerative abilities enable them to have longer lifespans. While humans would see them as immortal, as Odin stated, they are not. Loki pointed out even though they are not truly immortal, they can live a lot longer, at least by 5,000 years. This explains why Bor is no longer living because he could have reached his 5,000 years lifespan sometime after the War with the Dark Elves. Asgardians age as humans do in the first years of their lives, but when they reach early adulthood, they start to age much more slowly.

They do have a different internal anatomy than humans, with their bones, tissues, and skin several of times denser than a normal human's. While they do have red blood like humans, human doctors are unfamiliar with their anatomy and are unable to help a wounded or fallen Asgardian.[10] While Earthly materials can wound them if wielded by an individual with superhuman strength or with highly advanced technology, human level strength, and lower level human-made weapons do not deliver enough force to hurt them.[9]

Asgardians with potent magical ability have been shown to have the option of dissolving into energy either upon the point of death, as with Odin and Hela,[3] or after an elaborate funerary ritual, as with Frigga.[2] Other Asgardians simply leave corpses behind; Hela's undead warriors were viable enough for resurrection even after millennia of internment.

The Asgardians are a warrior race and they often (as youngsters) yearn for battle. They are trained in the use of various weapons and hand-to-hand combat; Queen Frigga is seen to have gone toe-to-toe with Malekith, besting him at sword fighting.[2] Similarly, many of the Asgardian civilians armed themselves to help fight against Hela's undead army.[3] As children they are also taught about the races of the Nine Realms and beyond, even learning other races' languages.[5]

The Asgardians are also seen to have a writing system similar to Nordic runes of Earth.[2] This makes sense since the Asgardians had contact with ancient Scandinavian cultures and way have taught them how to write.

Behind the Scenes

The Asgardians are the most recurring alien species in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, alongside the Kree, due in part to their frequent appearances in both the films and television shows and the pivotal roles they play in the overall storyline.